Hopeless

Hopeless
by Colleen Hoover

Pages:  420
Published:  12/18/12 by Colleen Hoover
Format:  ebok

MY RATING:
3.5 out of 5 stars








Hopeless is the story of two teens, Sky and Holder, and how they fell in love.  It is more than just a romance, though there is plenty of romance (a little too much for my taste).  As Sky learns more about Holder, she also learns more about her past and uncovers dark secrets that turn her world upside down.

I was intrigued by this book because of the crazy high ratings it has been receiving on Goodreads.  With over 19,000 ratings and an average rating of 4.64, I was expecting this book to be the best book I have ever read.  Okay, maybe I wasn't really expecting that much, but I was expecting it to be pretty amazing.

It was not amazing.  I liked it.  But I just do not get why everyone is raving so much about it.   Granted, romance is not my first genre of choice.  Also, I am not a teen.  So maybe I am not the target audience for a book like this. 

It is a good story.  While it follows the typical story of good girl meets bad boy (who is not really all that bad) and falls in love, there is a twist to this story that makes it different and darker than many other teen romances.  I did enjoy reading it for the most part, even when the subject matter was not always easy to stomach.

But, it just wasn't well-written.  Sometimes it was so cheesy, specifically the whole "I live you" dialogue, which just made me want to gag.  The dialogue in general was dull and lifeless.   I'm not a big fan of detailed makeout/sex scenes, so I found myself skimming through many of those pages.  And, as a reader, I felt like I was smart enough to figure out that "hopeless" is a theme in the book.  I did not need the author to use the word over and over again repeatedly. 

There are some plot twists that are unbelievable. I guess you are just supposed to believe that Sky and Holder were "meant to be" but for me it just felt unrealistic.  Towards the end, I thought both Sky and Holder were very long-winded in their monologues about their feelings. 

If I hadn't read so many rave reviews, I probably wouldn't be so picky about all these things, and I might have even enjoyed the book a bit more.  But this is a book that did not live up to the hype for me.